Welcome to today's Word of Encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

The devotional for today titled Justice and Jesus was written by Mart Dahan.

Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, wanted to be known as a law and order ruler.

Even though he built his empire on the back of slave labor, military conquest, and financial bribery,

he restored a measure of legal due process and gave his citizens Aeusticia,

a goddess our justice system today refers to as Lady Justice. He also called for a census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the birth

of a long-awaited ruler whose greatness would reach to the ends of the earth. What neither Augustus nor the rest of the world

could have anticipated is how a far greater king would live and die to show what real justice

looks like. Centuries earlier, in the prophet Micah's day, the people of God had once again

lapsed into a culture of lies, violence, and ill-gotten treasures.

God's dearly loved nation had lost sight of him.

He longed for them to show their world what it meant to do right by each other and walk humbly with him.

It took a servant king to personify the kind of justice that hurting, forgotten, and helpless people long for.

It took the fulfillment of Micah's prophecy in Jesus to see right relationships established between God and people and person to person.

This would not come in the outward enforcement of Caesar-like law and order,

but in the freedom of the mercy, goodness, and spirit of our servant, King Jesus.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Micah, chapter 6, verses 1 through 8.

Listen to what the Lord says.

Stand up, plead my case before the mountains.

Let the hills hear what you have to say.

Here are you mountains, the Lord's accusation.

Listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth,

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